Geological Prize Called Haiti

By F. William Engdahl

A born-again neo-conservative US business wheeler-dealer preacher claims Haitians are condemned for making a literal ‘pact with the Devil.’

Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Bolivian, French and Swiss rescue organizations accuse the US military of refusing landing rights to planes bearing necessary medicines and urgently needed potable water to the millions of Haitians stricken, injured and homeless.

Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.

Haiti, and the larger island of Hispaniola of which it is a part, has the geological fate that it straddles one of the world’s most active geological zones, where the deepwater plates of three huge structures relentlessly rub against one another—the intersection of the North American, South American and Caribbean tectonic plates. Below the ocean and the waters of the Caribbean, these plates consist of an oceanic crust some 3 to 6 miles thick, floating atop an adjacent mantle. Haiti also lies at the edge of the region known as the Bermuda Triangle, a vast area in the Caribbean subject to bizarre and unexplained disturbances.

This vast mass of underwater plates are in constant motion, rubbing against each other along lines analogous to cracks in a broken porcelain vase that has been reglued. The earth’s tectonic plates typically move at a rate 50 to 100 mm annually in relation to one another, and are the origin of earthquakes and of volcanoes. The regions of convergence of such plates are also areas where vast volumes of oil and gas can be pushed upwards from the Earth’s mantle. The geophysics surrounding the convergence of the three plates that run more or less directly beneath Port-au-Prince make the region prone to earthquakes such as the one that struck Haiti with devastating ferocity on January 12.

A relevant Texas geological project

Leaving aside the relevant question of how well in advance the Pentagon and US scientists knew the quake was about to occur, and what Pentagon plans were being laid before January 12, another issue emerges around the events in Haiti that might help explain the bizarre behavior to date of the major ‘rescue’ players—the United States, France and Canada. Aside from being prone to violent earthquakes, Haiti also happens to lie in a zone that, due to the unusual geographical intersection of its three tectonic plates, might well be straddling one of the world’s largest unexplored zones of oil and gas, as well as of valuable rare strategic minerals.

The vast oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and of the region from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden are at a similar convergence zone of large tectonic plates, as are such oil-rich zones as Indonesia and the waters off the coast of California. In short, in terms of the physics of the earth, precisely such intersections of tectonic masses as run directly beneath Haiti have a remarkable tendency to be the sites of vast treasures of minerals, as well as oil and gas, throughout the world.

Notably, in 2005, a year after the Bush-Cheney Administration de facto deposed the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Baptiste Aristide, a team of geologists from the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas began an ambitious and thorough two-phase mapping of all geological data of the Caribbean Basins. The project is due to be completed in 2011. Directed by Dr. Paul Mann, it is called “Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons.” It is all about determining as precisely as possible the relation between tectonic plates in the Caribbean and the potential for hydrocarbons—oil and gas.

Notably, the sponsors of the multi-million dollar research project under Mann are the world’s largest oil companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, the Anglo-Dutch Shell and BHP Billiton. Curiously enough, the project is the first comprehensive geological mapping of a region that, one would have thought, would have been a priority decades ago for the US oil majors. Given the immense, existing oil production off Mexico, Louisiana, and the entire Caribbean, as well as its proximity to the United States – not to mention the US focus on its own energy security – it is surprising that the region had not been mapped earlier. Now it emerges that major oil companies were at least generally aware of the huge oil potential of the region long ago, but apparently decided to keep it quiet.


Cuba’s Super-giant find

Evidence that the US Administration may well have more in mind for Haiti than the improvement of the lot of the devastated Haitian people can be found in nearby waters off Cuba, directly across from Port-au-Prince. In October 2008 a consortium of oil companies led by Spain’s Repsol, together with Cuba's state oil company, Cubapetroleo, announced discovery of one of the world’s largest oilfields in the deep water off Cuba. It is what oil geologists call a ‘Super-giant’ field. Estimates are that the Cuban field contains as much as 20 billion barrels of oil, making it the twelfth Super-giant oilfield discovered since 1996. The discovery also likely makes Cuba a new high-priority target for Pentagon destabilization and other nasty operations.

No doubt to the dismay of Washington, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew to Havana one month after the Cuban giant oil find to sign an agreement with acting-President Raul Castro for Russian oil companies to explore and develop Cuban oil.
Medvedev’s Russia-Cuba oil agreements came only a week after the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to meet the recuperating Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. The Chinese President signed an agreement to modernize Cuban ports and discussed Chinese purchase of Cuban raw materials. No doubt the mammoth new Cuban oil discovery was high on the Chinese agenda with Cuba. On November 5, 2008, just prior to the Chinese President’s trip to Cuba and other Latin American countries, the Chinese government issued their first ever policy paper on the future of China’s relations with Latin America and Caribbean nations, elevating these bilateral relations to a new level of strategic importance.

The Cuba Super-giant oil find also leaves the advocates of ‘Peak Oil’ theory with more egg on the face. Shortly before the Bush-Blair decision to invade and occupy Iraq, a theory made the rounds of cyberspace, that sometime after 2010, the world would reach an absolute “peak” in world oil production, initiating a period of decline with drastic social and economic implications. Its prominent spokesmen, including retired oil geologist Colin Campbell and Texas oil banker Matt Simmons, claimed that there had not been a single new Super-giant oil discovery since 1976, or thereabouts, and that new fields found over the past two decades had been “tiny” compared with the earlier giant discoveries in Saudi Arabia, Prudhoe Bay, Daquing in China and elsewhere.
It is critical to note that, more than half a century ago, a group of Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists, working in state secrecy, confirmed that hydrocarbons originated deep in the earth’s mantle under conditions similar to a giant burning cauldron at extreme temperature and pressure. They demonstrated that, contrary to US and accepted Western ‘mainstream’ geology, hydrocarbons were not the result of dead dinosaur detritus concentrated and compressed and somehow transformed into oil and gas millions of years ago, nor of algae or other biological material.
The Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists then proved that the oil or gas produced in the earth’s mantle was pushed upwards along faults or cracks in the earth as close to the surface as pressures permitted. The process was analogous to the production of molten lava in volcanoes. It means that the ability to find oil is limited, relatively speaking, only by the ability to identify deep fissures and complex geological activity conducive to bringing the oil out from deep in the earth. It seems that the waters of the Caribbean, especially those off Cuba and its neighbor Haiti, are just such a region of concentrated hydrocarbons (oil and gas) that have found their way upwards close to the surface, perhaps in a magnitude comparable to a new Saudi Arabia.

Haiti, a new Saudi Arabia?

The remarkable geography of Haiti and Cuba and the discovery of world-class oil reserves in the waters off Cuba lend credence to anecdotal accounts of major oil discoveries in several parts of Haitian territory. It also could explain why two Bush Presidents and now special UN Haiti Envoy Bill Clinton have made Haiti such a priority. As well, it could explain why Washington and its NGO’s moved so quickly to remove-- twice-- the democratically elected President Aristide, whose economic program for Haiti included, among other items, proposals for developing Haitian natural resources for the benefit of the Haitian people.

In March 2004, some months before the University of Texas and American Big Oil launched their ambitious mapping of the hydrocarbon potentials of the Caribbean, a Haitian writer, Dr. Georges Michel, published online an article titled ‘Oil in Haiti.’ In it, Michel wrote,

It has been no secret that deep in the earthy bowels of the two states that share the island of Haiti and the surrounding waters that there are significant, still untapped deposits of oil. One knows not why they are still untapped. Since the early twentieth century, the physical and political map of the island of Haiti, erected in 1908 by Messrs. Alexander Poujol and Henry Thomasset, reported a major oil reservoir in Haiti near the source of the Rio Todo El Mondo, Tributary Right Artibonite River, better known today as the River Thomonde.
According to a June 2008 article by Roberson Alphonse in the Haitian paper, Le Nouvelliste en Haiti, “The signs, (indicators), justifying the explorations of oil (black gold) in Haiti are encouraging. In the middle of the oil shock, some 4 companies want official licenses from the Haitian State to drill for oil.”

At the time, oil prices were climbing above $140 a barrel -- on manipulations by various Wall Street banks. Alphonse’s article quoted Dieusuel Anglade, the Haitian State Director of the Office of Mining and Energy, telling the Haitian press: "We've received four requests for oil exploration permits…We have had encouraging indicators to justify the pursuit of the exploration of black gold (oil), which had stopped in 1979."

Alphonse reported the findings from a 1979 geological study in Haiti of 11 exploratory oil wells drilled at the Plaine du Cul-de-sac on the Plateau Central and at L'ile de La Gonaive: “Surface (tentative) indicators for oil were found at the Southern peninsula and on the North coast, explained the engineer Anglade, who strongly believes in the immediate commercial viability of these explorations.”
Journalist Alphonse cites an August 16, 1979 memo by Haitian attorney Francois Lamothe, in which he noted that “five big wells were drilled” down to depths of 9000 feet and that a sample that “underwent a physical-chemical analysis in Munich, Germany” had “revealed tracks of oil.”

Despite the promising 1979 results in Haiti, Dr. Georges Michel reported that, “the big multinational oil companies operating in Haiti pushed for the discovered deposits not to be exploited.” Oil exploration in and offshore Haiti ground to a sudden halt as a result.

Similar if less precise reports claiming that Haitian oil reserves could be vastly larger than those of Venezuela have appeared in Haitian websites. Then in 2010 the financial news site Bloomberg News carried the following:

The Jan. 12 earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist who worked in the region for 30 years for companies that included the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said Monday in a telephone interview. ‘A geologist, callous as it may seem, tracing that fault zone from Port-au-Prince to the border looking for gas and oil seeps, may find a structure that hasn't been drilled,’ said Pierce, exploration manager at Zion Oil & Gas Inc., a Dallas-based company that's drilling in Israel.
In an interview with a Santo Domingo online paper, Leopoldo Espaillat Nanita, former head of the Dominican Petroleum Refinery (REFIDOMSA) stated, “there is a multinational conspiracy to illegally take the mineral resources of the Haitian people.” Haiti’s minerals include gold, the valuable strategic metal iridium and oil, apparently lots of it.

Aristide’s development plans

Marguerite Laurent ('Ezili Dantò'), president of the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network (HLLN) who served as attorney for the deposed Aristide, notes that when Aristide was President -- up until his US-backed ouster during the Bush era in 2004 -- he had developed and published in book form his national development plans. These plans included, for the first time, a detailed list of known sites where the resources of Haiti were located. The publication of the plan sparked a national debate over Haitian radio and in the media about the future of the country. Aristide’s plan was to implement a public-private partnership to ensure that the development of Haiti’s oil, gold and other valuable resources would benefit the national economy and the broader population, and not merely the five Haitian oligarchic families and their US backers, the so-called Chimeres or gangsters.
Since the ouster of Aristide in 2004, Haiti has been an occupied country, with a dubiously-elected President, Rene Preval, a controversial follower of IMF privatization mandates and reportedly tied to the Chimeres or Haitian oligarchs who backed the removal of Aristide. Notably, the US State Department refuses to permit the return of Aristide from South African exile.

Now, in the wake of the devastating earthquake of January 12, the United States military has taken control of Haiti’s four airports and presently has some 20,000 troops in the country. Journalists and international aid organizations have accused the US military of being more concerned with imposing military control, which it prefers to call “security,” than with bringing urgently needed water, food and medicine from the airport sites to the population.

A US military occupation of Haiti under the guise of earthquake disaster ‘relief’ would give Washington and private business interests tied to it a geopolitical prize of the first order. Prior to the January 12 quake, the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince was the fifth largest US embassy in the world, comparable to its embassies in such geopolitically strategic places as Berlin and Beijing. With huge new oil finds off Cuba being exploited by Russian companies, with clear indications that Haiti contains similar vast untapped oil as well as gold, copper, uranium and iridium, with Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela as a neighbor to the south of Haiti, a return of Aristide or any popular leader committed to developing the resources for the people of Haiti, -- the poorest nation in the Americas -- would constitute a devastating blow to the world’s sole Superpower. The fact that in the aftermath of the earthquake, UN Haiti Special Envoy Bill Clinton joined forces with Aristide foe George W. Bush to create something called the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund ought to give everyone pause.

According to Marguerite Laurent ('Ezili Dantò') of the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network, under the guise of emergency relief work, the US, France and Canada are engaged in a balkanization of the island for future mineral control. She reports rumors that Canada wants the North of Haiti where Canadian mining interests are already present. The US wants Port-au-Prince and the island of La Gonaive just offshore – an area identified in Aristide’s development book as having vast oil resources, and which is bitterly contested by France. She further states that China, with UN veto power over the de facto UN-occupied country, may have something to say against such a US-France-Canada

By Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues



January 29, 2010

English Garbage has not changed since the colonial days, since the days of Her Majesty's Empire, for Garbage remains Garbage. The proof, look at not so Great Britain today - a mere lapdog, a poodle, a verminous puppy at America's beck and call. Garbage remains Garbage.

England, the UK, not so Great Britain, I will use those terms interchangeably. For me they are all the same and point to the same. The snake's head, the viper's head has become its tail. In Arabic we say "rass al haya el Ingles". The snake's head are the English...today we say "thayl al haya el Ingles" today they are its tail.

And a tail you sure have become, they keep wagging you...but between the head and the tail, garbage remains garbage. It's like there is the surface of a garbage bin and the bottom of a garbage bin and you happen to be at the bottom of the bin.

Oh, all those plums in arse (ass for the yanks) exclamations around the Inquiry, oh the Inquiry par excellence.. Oh much obliged for your fucking inquiries....seven years down the line.

So what are you inquiring your ladyships and esquires of my arse ? Oh the legality or illegality of Iraq's occupation. And all those little English turds are getting so excited today, with "goodness gracious Blair is lying". Said with an impeccably placid cold face, those same cold faces that betray nothing, not even the flimsiest of emotions, very much like the face of a psychopath caught in the middle of a slaughterous, sanguienous act...

Constricted, restricted and chronically constipated, from head to toes, those prime and proper spastic Brits voice their little indignations, a mouse's squeak from a rat hole..."Oh he is lying"...Oh really ?

"He should apologize to the families of the men who died in an unnecessary war" they say with clenched teeth and pursed lips - of course the families here are those of the stinking 179 or so English lads, the buggers in Her Majesty's uniform, who went for some "some jolly good fun", in Babylon...sodomizing, buggering, their way through in search for Weapons of Mass Destruction and buggering their way through our "liberation", pissing on the "locals" expiating archaic inferiority complexes, poking them with spikes and rifles, battering a few till death after some good old shagging the English way -- bend over, bottoms up -- the perfect training from Eaton to Sandhurst....the time long, perennial fascination with the Oriental arse...

Yes Tony Blair, do apologize for your filth of a people...apologize to them because they voted for you TWICE, and this is the dark flip side of the coin you will not be hearing in the tumultuous collective mousy English squeaks.

And make sure no one apologizes to us, no one. We don't want your apologies. You can shove your apologies up the English arses. Families of 1.5 million Iraqis murdered by lies and silence, don't want your apologies. Neither do they want your toilet paper editorials, à la Jonathan Steele, à la vermin Patrick Cockburn. Nor do we want your sympathy or indignation. We desire none of that.

Disgenuious and perfidious to the bone, we already know what mud you are made of...remember ?! We remember all too well...Africa and India remember too...one thing in your favour, you can't be forgotten.

An Iraqi journalist told the Arabic Fox news "Al-Jazeera", he said "A liar is still a liar, removing Saddam had done little to help ordinary Iraqis. Before 2003 there were problems with security, infrastructure and services, and people died because of the sanctions, but after 2003 there are major disasters...after six years or seven years there is no success on the ground, in any aspect."

But you don't care about truth or success being the mediocre poodles of Empire. What you care about is buggering, sodomizing the Iraqis. This is what you really care about. You care about destruction, plundering and murder for the sake of murder...a collective Jack the Ripper. You care about regime change because Saddam was a "tyrant who threatened the world". The only tyrants, the only psychopaths I see are You.

Rooted, ingrained and embedded -- in lies and hypocrisy, in your all too familiar double talk, two faced masks, in your deep almost genetic envy that goes by the name of "fascination", in your deep insecurity blacked out in drunken brashness, in your prudish victorian impotence gulped down in pints of liquor, in your patronizing, paternalistic, condescending demeanor, something you have never been able to shake off, something part and parcel of your natural, non existent pathetic selves...

Unhygienic, filthy, unwashed, stinking to the core, debauched and decadent, hiding your sick perversions behind the facade of "proper" and "civilized". How many a times did I hear those words uttered from behind your stenchful breaths, with your stiff upper lip, with your immobilized faces, with your paralyzed affect...

And how many a times have I seen you walk with arrogance, smugness and know it all, teaching down the "natives" what proper conduct is, dressed in your cheap suits, your British Home Stores bargains, wearing the same shirts, socks and shoes for weeks... miser, niggardly, grabbing free meals whenever you can, beggarly counting pennies, using and profiteering behind this polished veneer of "civility", feigning your way through...smirking and backbiting like street hookers when no one is watching only to redress your pitiful selves the minute you are seen...for the aura of English untouchability needs to be preserved at all costs, while your filth seeps through the cracks of your mendacious beings...

The garbage of the Old Word in the ancient lands of Mesopotamia - this is my gift to you.


Picture : Garbage with a thousand freed Iraqi seagulls hovering above...

January 24, 2010 Layla Anwar

Can anyone answer that question ? Not answer it just off the top of their heads and blurt out the usual garbage that we have been hearing since 2003, but answer it by looking at the full picture from 2003 until this very day...

Politics are not about who says what and when only, politics are about taking an eagle's view of a situation, about understanding the agenda behind political decisions and statements, about understanding who, what, where the key players are from, who do they serve, what is their agenda so on and so forth...

Political naivety does not pay. Political immaturity is deadly. Political faith/trust in who says what and when is idiocy.

Sure it is important to connect dots, have an eye for details, but the question remains, what is the overall plan, and what are the best ways of achieving it. This is what one should look for when attempting to answer the above question.

I can't go through ALL of the events, pretexts and actions that took place since 2003, the date of Iraq's invasion and occupation. This is a monumental task fit for a book not a blog. But what I can do is briefly resume the main points, as they have been unfolding for 7 years now...

But before I do so, I need to issue a warning here.

The first thing to do is to break that image, that myth, that most people hold in their heads, namely that the American neocons policy towards Iraq as embodied by Bush and Co is strategically different from the so-called Democrats as embodied by Obama and that consequently the aims are different. This is a MYTH. A political myth grown out of some false loyalty to a belief that the Democrats are fundamentally different from the Republicans in American politics.

So in this hopefully short post because I will try to keep it short as I maintain and argue that the American strategy/policy towards Iraq has remain unchanged, and contrary to naive popular belief, it is unfolding along a clear concise continuum, i.e continuity in plan.

So let's roll back, to 2003 first.

The Americans gave the following reasons for their invasion and occupation of Iraq and which has cost us millions of dead and maimed in 7 years and I shall take it point by point.

1) the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction
2) Links between Saddam Hussein, and his government with Al-Qaeda
3) Saddam Hussein was a threat to his neighbors
4) Saddam Hussein and his government have committed crimes against the people of Iraq
5) Saddam Hussein and his government are a tyrannical form of government

so the plan unfolded... and

6) removal of Saddam Hussein and regime change, debaathification, and the disintegration of the previous State apparatus including the army, so a "New Democratic Iraq" can be born.

7) for the New democratic Iraq to be born and for regime change to be radically effective, from its roots up, America called on the Shiites of Iraq, many of whom had clear Iranian affiliations, some were even born in Iran and they were put in power by the Americans.



The ideological justifications given for for this political decision was a) Shiites were oppressed in Iraq, (all the Jews of the White House harped on that and continue to harp on that, including the leftists of America like Chomsky and his followers) and it was Sunnis that ruled brutally. b)The other justification given for radical regime change was that the Kurds have been brutally repressed and murdered by Saddam and his government and a thousand stories were concocted to that effect. For both a) and b) to be credible, i.e a massive black propaganda campaign was run against Saddam, his government and the Baath party until this very day,7 years on.

This campaign both by the Shiite government, by the Kurds, the Americans, the Iranians, the Israelis is done with the aim of ensuring that NEVER AGAIN would a Saddam Hussein, an ARAB Baath party rise to power again. You need to keep that in mind. Because I will get back to it And by ARAB Baath, I mean a SECULAR, PROGRESSIVE, ARAB IDEOLOGY as was encapsulated by the Baath party and not just a political party as such.

8) once the above was achieved, it was necessary to give a rational, a plausible excuse to have a full Shiite government in Iraq and ensure its continuity. Thus came the Sammarra bombing, which sparked a deadly sectarian war, in which the Sunnis of Iraq, the Arabs of Iraq were decimated by Iranian backed militias and by Iranians and Americans plus a whole group of spies, agents and contractors. The targets were Iraqi Arabs, scientists, academics, doctors, army men, etc...

The aim was to ensure the cultural, intellectual, political, identity cleansing of Iraq...and ensure that Iraq's human assets and consequently institutions like centers of learning, hospitals, etc...be completely and radically destroyed. Thus keeping the Iraqi people in a state of chronic backwardness. And crush whatever pride the Iraqis had in being able to develop their own country like they did in the past under the ARAB Baath. In other words, a blow to the Iraqi Head, so that it can NEVER RISE UP AGAIN. This is to put it simply.

9) once the above was successfully achieved, no without resistance though, hence the forming of the Awakening councils to strangulate the Resistance and the use of "Al-Qaeda" to plant a state of permanent terror. So once that was achieved, a so called election took place that gave a semblance of a legitimacy to an all Shiite government with clear ties and loyalties to Iran and at the same time strengthening the Kurds in the North and expanding their military influence all the way to Kirkuk and Mosul.

10) At that point in time, which was around 2007/2008, the Americans clearly spoke of a partition of Iraq due to it's unruly nature. The partition plan was a South, a Center and a North, the main protaganist for that partition plan was J.Biden the democrat.

11) When the Americans choose those Shiites to represent the New Iraq, they were fully aware of their ties and loyalties to Iran. The American army in Iraq is still fully aware that those Shiite parties and their militias take orders directly from Iran. This is a very important point, it is a crucial point to keep remembering. I cannot stress it enough.

12) When Maliki from the all Shiite DAWA party came to power and Obama won the elections, the tide apparently turned, so did the discourse, and there was talk of a) a reconciliation process b) a US troop withdrawal by 2012. Meanwhile security agreements were signed between the US and the Shiite Iraqi government in the Green Zone (one clause is no military action on Iran) and in parallel, a massive privatization campaign took and is taking place, with bids and tenders being grabbed by Western firms, be it in the oil or other industries.
In parallel, the Kurds are consolidating their power in the North, in Kirkuk and Mosul, with mass ethnic cleansing and displacement of non Kurds. And they also started signing bilateral deals to sell the oil from the Northern fields.

13) The Americans felt and still believe that those who could serve their political and economic interests best in Iraq and further down the line in the ARAB region are the Shiites with clear loyalty to Iran and the Kurds with clear loyalty to Israel.

14) Maliki's false attempts at national reconciliation failed, because the nature of Shiite sectarianism cannot allow for any political reconciliation and because any true attempt at national reconciliation and welcoming the Arabs of Iraq and in particular the Sunnis and the Secular forces into the political process poses a DIRECT THREAT to both Iran and Israel.

In other words, keeping the Shiite nature of the government in Iraq and its clear sectarianism is essential for both Iran and Israel. Israel knows that Shiites who are majority loyal to Iran pose no ideological or non ideological threat to it, and it is most important for Iran to continue its grip over Iraq and its political institutions to ensure the continuity of Shiite rule in Iraq, and its power grip at least insofar as the South and the Center of the country are concerned, while at the same time politically backing the Kurds in the North.

15) The Americans on the ground in Iraq and in the White House, know very well that this is currently the balance of power in Iraq. The idea that there is a non official partitioning i.e clear cut geographical areas, like the South, the Center and the North is most welcomed, because that was the original plan to start with.

But a plan needs finishing touches. The finishing touches to work on are still in the North where the Kurds, US and Iraqi forces are meeting with Resistance and in the center, namely the Anbar province and Baghdad. The grip is not complete yet. The demographic changes as a result of massive ethnic/sectarian cleansing, displacement and exile, have not given the exactly desired results, because somewhere along the line, Iraqis are resisting the idea of being partitioned. This is also another important point to remember.

And this is where I shall hopefully pick upon in part 2 and tie it the latest events, 7 years on -- i.e the banning of Secular, Iraqi ARAB, and Sunnis from the upcoming elections as an extra piece of evidence, proof to all what I have written above.

to be continued ...

Posted by Layla Anwar at 24.1.10

Headed to Haiti

By Steven Lendman

January 18, 2010

In her book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," Naomi Klein explores the myth of free market democracy, explaining how neoliberalism dominates the world with America its main exponent exploiting security threats, terror attacks, economic meltdowns, competing ideologies, tectonic political or economic shifts, and natural disasters to impose its will everywhere.

As a result, wars are waged, social services cut, public ones privatized, and freedom sacrificed when people are too distracted, cowed or in duress to object. Disaster capitalism is triumphant everywhere from post-Soviet Russia to post-apartheid South Africa, occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Honduras before and after the US-instigated coup, post-tsunami Sri Lanka and Aceh, Indonesia, New Orleans post-Katrina, and now heading to Haiti full-throttle after its greatest ever catastrophe. The same scheme always repeats, exploiting people for profits, the prevailing neoliberal idea that "there is no alternative" so grab all you can.

On Her web site, Klein headlines a "Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again," then quotes the extremist Heritage Foundation saying:

"In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the US response to the tragic Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."

Heritage notes "Things to Remember While Helping Haiti," itemized briefly below:

-- be bold and decisive;

-- mobilize US civilian and military capabilities "for short-term rescue and relief and long-term recovery and reform;"

-- US military forces should play an active role interdicting "cocaine to Haiti and Dominican Republic from the Venezuelan coast and counter ongoing efforts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to destabilize the island of Hispaniola;"

-- US Coast Guard vessels should stop Haitians from trying "to enter the US illegally;"

-- Congress should authorize "assistance, trade and reconstruction efforts;" and

-- US diplomacy should "counter the negative propaganda certain to emanate from the Castro-Chavez camp (to) demonstrate that the US's involvement in the Caribbean remains a powerful force for good in the Americas and around the globe."

Heritage is an imperial tool advocating predation, exploitation, and Haitian redevelopment for profit, not for desperate people to repair their lives. It disdains democratic freedoms, social justice, and envisions a global economy "where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish" solely for the privileged, the chosen few, not the disadvantaged or greater majority.

It's for free market plunder, regulatory freedom, tax cuts for the rich, exploiting the majority, corporate handouts, and militarized control for enforcement. It supports the Bilderberg idea of a global classless society - a New World Order with rulers and serfs, no middle class, no unions, no democracy, no equity or justice, just empowered oligarchs, freed to do as they please under a universal legal system benefitting them.

For the moment, their focus is Haiti, ripe for plunder, like the second tsunami that hit coastal Sri Lankans. The December 2004 one took 250,000 lives and left 2.5 million homeless throughout the region. Klein explained the aftermath at Arugam Bay, "a fishing and faded resort village" on Sri Lanka's east coast that was showcased to "build back better." Not for villagers, for developers, hoteliers, and other business interests to exploit. After the disaster, they had a blank slate for what the tourist industry long wanted - "a pristine beach (on prime real estate), scrubbed clean of all the messy signs of people working, a vacation Eden. It was the same up and down the coast once rubble was cleared....paradise" given the profit potential.

New rules forbade coastal homes, so a buffer zone was imposed to insure it. Beaches were off-limits. Displaced Sri Lankans were shoved into grim barracks, and "menacing, machine-gun-wielding soldiers" patrolled to keep them there.

Tourist operators, however, were welcomed and encouraged to build on oceanfront land - to transform the former fishing village into a "high-end boutique tourism destination (with) five-star resorts, luxury chalets, (and even a) floatplane pier and helipad."

It was to be a model for transforming around 30 similar zones into a South Asian Riviera to let Sri Lanka reenter the world economy as one of the last remaining uncolonized places globalization hadn't touched. High-end tourism was the ticket - to provide a luxury destination for the rich once a few changes were made. Government land was opened to private buyers. Labor laws were relaxed or eliminated. Modern infrastructure would be built, and public opposition suppressed to let plans proceed unimpeded.

The same scheme followed Hurricane Mitch in October 1998 when Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua were hardest hit. In Sri Lanka, Washington took the Mitch model to the next level - beyond individuals to corporate control over reconstruction. Business ran everything. Affected people were shut out. Klein called it a new type corporate coup mother nature made possible. Now again in Haiti with an idea of what's coming.

Powerful business interests constructed a blueprint from housing to hotels to highways and other needed infrastructure. Disaster relief went for development. Victims got nothing and were consigned to permanent shantytowns like the kinds in most Global South cities and Global North inner ones. Aceh and other affected areas adopted the same model.

A year after the tsunami, the NGO Action Aid surveyed the results in five Asian countries and found the same pattern - residents barred from rebuilding and living in militarized camps, while developers were given generous incentives. Lost was their way of life forever.

The same scheme played out in New Orleans with unfettered capitalism given free reign. With considerable Bush administration help, mother nature gave corporate predators a golden opportunity for plunder. Prevailing wage rates for federally funded or assisted construction projects were suspended. So were environmental regulations in an already polluted area, enough to be designated a superfund site or toxic waste dump. Instead, redevelopment was planned.

As a previous article explained, New Orleans had ample warning but was unprepared. The city is shaped like a bowl, lies below sea level, and its Gulf coast is vulnerable. As a result, the inevitable happened, affecting the city's least advantaged - the majority black population targeted for removal and needing only an excuse to do it. The storm wiped out public housing and erased communities, letting developers build upscale condos and other high-profit projects on choice city land.

It was right out of the Chicago School's play book, what economist Milton Friedman articulated in his 1962 book, "Capitalism and Freedom." His thesis:

"only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When a crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around...our basic function (is) to develop alternatives to existing policies (and be ready to roll them out when the) impossible becomes the politically inevitable."

Friedman believed that government's sole function is "to protect our freedom from (outside) enemies (and) our fellow-citizens. (It's to) preserve law and order (as well as) enforce private contracts, (safeguard private property and) foster competitive markets."

Everything else in public hands is socialism, an ideology he called blasphemous. He said markets work best unfettered of rules, regulations, onerous taxes, trade barriers, "entrenched interests" and human interference, and the best government is practically none - the wild west because, in his view, anything government does business does better so let it. Ideas about democracy, social justice, and a caring society were verboten because they interfere with free-wheeling capitalism.

He said public wealth should be in private hands, profit accumulation unrestrained, corporate taxes abolished, and social services curtailed or ended. He believed "economic freedom is an end to itself (and) an indispensable means toward (achieving) political freedom." He opposed the minimum wage, unions, market interference, an egalitarian society, and called Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme on earth." He supported a flat tax favoring the rich, and believed everyone should have to rely on their own resources to get by.

In a word, Friedmanomics preaches unrestrained market fundamentalism. "Free to choose," he said with no regard for human needs and rights. For him and his followers, economic freedom is the be-all-and-end-all under limited government, the marketplace being the master.

Applied to New Orleans, it meant permanent changes, including removing public housing, developing upscale properties in its place, privatizing schools, and destroying a way of life for thousands of disadvantaged blacks expelled from their communities and not allowed back.

Klein called Friedman's thesis "the shock doctrine." Applied to Russia, Eastern Europe and other developing states, it was shock therapy. For affected people, it was economic and social disaster under Friedman's prescription for mass-privatizations, deregulation, unrestricted free market predation, deep social spending cuts, and harsh crackdowns against resisters. It's disaster capitalism, business is booming, and Haitians will soon feel its full fury under military occupation.

Haiti - Beleaguered, Occupied, and Stricken by a Disaster of Biblical Proportions

Since the 19th century, America dominated Haiti. Before the quake, a proxy paramilitary Blue Helmet force occupied the country, dispatched not for peacekeeping but iron-grip control. Worse still, it was the first time ever that UN forces supported a coup d'etat government, the one Washington installed after US Marines kidnapped President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, forcibly exiled him to Africa, and ended the political, economic and social reforms he instituted - in areas of health, education, justice and human rights. Ever since, conditions for Haitians have been nightmarish, and now the quake and further misery ahead from the Pentagon's iron fist and greater than ever exploitation.

Obama's top priority is control, underway immediately after the Pentagon took over the Port-au-Prince airport, reopened it after its brief closure, and set up a temporary air traffic control center. Military personnel now decide what gets in or out, what's delivered, how fast, and according to unconfirmed reports, they slowed arriving search and rescue equipment, supplies, and personnel, except for what other countries managed to send in types and amounts way short of what's needed. As a result, trapped Haitians perished, whereas a concentrated, sustained airlift, including heavy earthmoving and other equipment, might have saved hundreds or thousands more lives.

The 1948 - 49 Berlin airlift showed how. For nearly 11 months, western allies delivered what rose to a daily average of 5,500 tons, providing vital supplies for the city's two million people. Today, the Pentagon has far greater capabilities. If ordered, massive amounts of virtually everything could be expedited, including heavy earthmoving equipment and teams of experts for every imaginable need. The result would have been vast numbers more lives saved, now perished because little was done to help, except for heroic volunteers providing food, water, and medical care, and Haitians who dug out survivors with small implements and their bare hands.

On January 15, Reuters reported that the Port-au-Prince 9,000-foot runway escaped serious damage and could handle big cargo planes easily. Immediately, food, water, medicine, rescue crews, and other specialists began arriving from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, China, and elsewhere, but very little from America, including vitally needed heavy equipment. Haiti has very little of what's needed.

Instead, the Pentagon sent in thousands of Marines and 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers (a 10,000 force contingent once in place), armed killers, not humanitarian personnel and regular supplies to sustain them. Larger numbers may follow to be supplemented by UN Blue Helmets and Haitian National Police under Pentagon command. A long-term commitment for militarized control is planned, not humanitarian relief, reminiscent of the 20-year 1915 - 1934 period when US Marines occupied and ravaged Haiti.

Throughout the country, the lives of nine million people are at stake. Of immediate concern, are the three million in Port-au-Prince and surroundings, devastated by the quake and unable to sustain themselves without substantial outside help.

Central also is Haiti's government, now crippled, including one report saying the senate building collapsed with most of the lawmakers inside. It's not clear who's alive or dead in either National Assembly chamber, the cabinet, or other government posts. It hardly matters, however, under US military control leaving President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive mere figureheads.

Once full control is established, the immediate shock subsides, and the media lose interest, reconstruction will be implemented for profit, not poor Haitians left on their own in communities like Cite Soleil and Bel Air or permanently displaced for what developers have in mind.

Efforts will focus on upscale areas and facilities for the Pentagon, US officials and selected bureaucrats. Before the quake, the Preval government was weak, ineffective, and uncaring about Haiti's vast needs. He effectively ceded power to Washington, the UN, and the large imperial-chosen NGO presence in the country.

In addition, Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party was banned from the scheduled February 2010 parliamentary elections (now cancelled or postponed), and was earlier excluded from the 2009 April and June process to fill 12 open senate seats, resulting in a turnout below 10%, and mocking a true democratic process.

Now, millions of Haitians hang by a thread. As one of them put it, "tout ayiti kraze," the whole country is no more. The government is inoperative. Port-au-Prince is in shambles. People are struggling to survive, 100,000 or more likely dead, a toll sure to rise as disease and depravation claim more. Those in poor communities are on their own. Rescuers are concentrating on high-profile, well-off areas, but without earthmoving equipment can do little to save victims. The problem - Washington obstructionism and indifference to human suffering and need.

On January 15, Al Jazeera reported that aid agencies are struggling under difficult conditions and inadequate supplies, let alone how to distribute them throughout the capital. As a result, frustration is growing with little help, no shelter, decaying bodies still unburied, the threat of disease, and the stench of death everywhere with no power, phones, clean water, food, and everything millions need.

Sebastian Walker, Al Jazeera's Port-au-Prince correspondent said:

"A lot of people have simply grown tired of waiting for those emergency workers to get to them. Thousands of people are streaming out of the city towards the provinces to try to find supplies of food and water, supplies that are running out in the city."

On January 16, Al Jazeera headlined "Haiti: UP to 200,000 feared dead." About 50,000 bodies have been collected, according to Haiti's interior minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, and he anticipates "between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number," nor how many more will expire in the weeks and months ahead, unnoticed and unreported.

On January 17, Al Jazeera headlined, "Aid teams struggle to help Haitians....amid difficulties in distributing relief supplies to those who need it most.

Sebastian Walker said delivering supplies stacking up at the airport has been extremely problematic:

"This comes down to the complex issue of who is in charge here. The US military has a great deal of control over the number of flights that are landing here. We heard that a UN flight carrying aid equipment had to be diverted because the US was landing its own aircraft there. The question of just who makes the decision over how to distribute the aid seems to be what is holding up the supplies."

The Pentagon decides, of course, and that's the problem. Obama also urges "patience," saying "many difficult days (are) ahead," without explaining his obstructionist uncaring role.

The result is reports like this:

-- from Canada's CBC As It Happens broadcast interview with an ICRC spokesperson saying he spent the morning of January 15 touring one of the hardest hit areas, and "In three hours, I didn't see a single rescue team;"

-- a same day BBC interview with an American Red Cross spokesperson complained about aid delivery - that arriving planes carried people, not supplies, and amounts at the airpot weren't being delivered;

- the Canada Haiti Action Network calls Port-au-Prince a city largely without aid because areas most in need aren't getting it; further, in nicer neighborhoods, dogs and extraction units arrived, but 90% of them are just sitting around, perhaps because of no earthmoving equipment to reach victims;

-- another report said a French plane carrying a field hospital was turned away, then later allowed in; meanwhile, Israel got carte blanche for its own field hospital, able to handle 500 casualties daily, so it begs the question - why praise Israel for (selectively) helping Haitians when it murders Palestinians daily, keeps the West Bank isolated and locked down, Gaza under siege, and denies critically ill residents exit permission for treatment unavailable from Strip facilities, leaving them to perish; and

-- various reports say US forces are preventing flights from landing; prioritized are landing US troops, repatriating American nationals, and perhaps starving poor Haitians to death; dozens of French citizens and dual Haitian-French nationals couldn't leave when their scheduled flight to Guadeloupe couldn't land; an angry French Secretary of State for Cooperation, Alain Joyandet, told reporters that he "made an official complaint to the Americans through the US embassy."

UN Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Report on Haiti Relief

On January 15, OCHA reported as follows:

"Logistics and the lack of transport remain the key constraints to the delivery of aid. Needs are still being identified as access becomes possible and as assessments begin to take place.

Displaced populations are currently scattered across multiple locations where there is open space. Temporary shelters urgently need to be established.

Fifteen sites have been identified for distribution of relief items. World Food Program reached 13,000 people today with food, jerry cans and water purification tablets."

OCHA continued, saying:

"A total of (only) 180 tons of relief supplies have arrived in-country so far. Operations are heavily constrained due to the lack of fuel, transport, communications and handling capacity at the airport. Some flights are being re-routed through Santo Domingo airport (far from Port-au-Prince in the Dominican Republic) which is also becoming congested."

In its latest January 16 report, OCHA repeated that airport logistics remain a challenge, the result of re-routed flights, congestion, lengthy offloading times, the lack of transport and fuel, no storage facility, and the airport "now packed with goods and teams" not being delivered.

Three million Haitians need help, but the World Food Program distributed high energy biscuits only to 50,000. Around 50,000 are getting hot meals.

Major health concerns include untreated trauma wounds, infections, infectious diseases, diarrhea, lack of safe drinking water and sanitation, and Haitians with pre-existing condition like HIV/AIDS, diabetes and cancer aren't being treated.

Up to a million people need immediate shelter and non-food aid, including clean water, blankets, kitchen and hygiene kits, plastic sheeting and tents.

"As of 16 January it is estimated that fuel for humanitarian operations will only last 2 to 3 more days before operations will be forced to cease."

There have only been 58 live rescues so far among the many thousands trapped beneath or behind rubble. OCHA launched a Flash Appeal for $575 million "to cover 3 million people severely affected for six months."

Sixteen EU nations are providing aid but not enough. America is doing practically nothing.

One nation delivering heroic help is Cuba, but little about it is reported. Despite its own constraints, it's operated in Haiti for years, and now has over 400 doctors and healthcare experts delivering free services. They work every day in 227 of the country's 337 communes. In addition, Cuban medical schools trained over 400 Haitian doctors, now working to save lives during the country's gravest crisis. It's no small achievement that Cuba, blockaded and constrained, is responsible for nearly 1,000 doctors and healthcare providers, all of whom work tirelessly to save lives and rehabilitate the injured.

According to China's Xinhua News Agency:

"Cuban aid workers have taken charge of (Haiti's) De la Paz Hospital, since its doctors have not appeared after the quake," perhaps because many perished, are wounded, or are trapped beneath or behind rubble themselves.

Cubans are working despite a lack of everything needed to provide care except for what its government managed to deliver. Dr. Carlos Alberto Garcia, coordinator of its medical brigade, said Cuban doctors, nurses and other health personnel are working non-stop, day and night. Operating rooms are open 18 hours a day.

Independent reports now say Washington is trying to block Cuban and Venezuelan aid workers by refusing them landing permission in Port-au-Prince. The Caribbean Community's emergency aid mission is also blocked. On January 15, the US State Department confirmed that it signed two Memoranda of Understanding with the remnants of Haiti's government putting Washington in charge of all inbound and outbound flights and aid offloading in the country.

For years, Cuba has sent doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers to countries in need worldwide, winning hearts and minds for its free highly professional services. It provides national healthcare for all its people, and now has about 25,000 doctors in 68 countries. In addition, over 1,800 doctors from 47 developing states graduate annually from Cuban medical schools, return home, and provide quality care for their people.

Major Media Misreporting

Ignoring Haiti's long history as a de facto US colony, the major media report a sanitized version of today's catastrophe. For example on January 14, The New York Times cynically editorialized: "Once again, the world weeps for Haiti." This is the same paper that lied in a March 1, 2004 editorial after US Marines forcibly exiled Aristide, saying:

-- he resigned;

-- sending in Marines "was the right thing to do;" and

-- they only arrived after "Mr. Aristide yielded power."

It also blamed him for "contribut(ing) significantly to his own downfall (because of his) increasingly autocratic and lawless rule," and accused him of manipulating the 2000 legislative elections and not "deliver(ing) the democracy he promised."

In fact, other than a brief period after its liberating revolution (1791 - January 1, 2004), the only time Haiti was democratically governed was under Aristide and during Rene Preval's first term. Aristide, in fact, was so beloved, he was overwhelmingly reelected in 2000 with a 92% majority and would be equally supported today if allowed to run. In fact, when he's most needed and wanted, Washington won't let him return.

In media coverage of Haiti's disaster, the greater story is suppressed, the one that matters, that puts today's tragedy in context:

-- 500 years of repression; slavery under the Spanish, then French, and since the 19th century as a de facto US colony;

-- deep poverty and human misery, the worst in the hemisphere;

-- despotic rule, occupation, exploitation, starvation, disease and low life expectancy; and

-- now now a disaster of biblical proportions getting Times headlines like:

"In Show of Support, Clinton Goes to Haiti"

Omitted was that it was for a brief airport photo op, America's usual show of indifference to human suffering, in this case, the result of US imperialism, not as a benefactor the way The Times and other major media portray.

"Officials Strain to Distribute Aid to Haiti as Violence Rises"

In fact, Haitians have been remarkably calm, no thanks to Washington that's slowing aid delivery, providing very little of its own, and offers little more than militarized occupation, armed killers, including Xe (formerly Blackwater Worldwide) mercenaries, notoriously savage brutes.

"Looting Flares Where Authority Breaks Down"

Looting? People are suffering, starving, dying, desperate because America sends fighters, not food; Marines, not medical aid; combat killers, not compassion, caring, and kindness; and diplomats, not doctors or human decency.

"Government Struggles to Exhume Itself"

Calling it "comparatively stable" ignores that Preval's government is a proxy for US interests and no longer functioning. Pentagon killers are now in charge.

"Bush, Clinton and Obama Unite to Raise Money for Haiti"

After the December 2004 tsunami struck East Asia, the Bush administration spearheaded a similar campaign, raised over $1 billion, and used it for corporate development, not people needs. Obama backs a similar scheme (Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund) in a show of contemptible indifference to human misery and chose two co-conspirators for his plan.

The Bush administration engineered the February 2004 coup ousting Aristide, established police state rule, and immiserated nine million Haitians. For his part, Clinton kept an iron grip throughout his presidency instead of supporting Aristide's political, economic and social reforms.

He's now UN Special Envoy to Haiti heading an Obama administration neoliberal scheme featuring tourism, textile sweatshops, sweeping privatizations and deregulation for greater cheap labor exploitation at the expense of providing essential needs. He orchestrated a plan to turn northern Haiti into a tourist playground and got Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines to invest $55 million for a pier in Labadee where the company operates a private resort and has contributed the largest amount of tourist revenue to the country since 1986.

More still is planned, including a new international airport in the north, an expanded free trade zone, a new one in Port-au-Prince, now delayed, various infrastructure projects, and an alliance with George Soros' Open Society Institute for a $50 million partnership with Haitian shipper Gregory Mevs to build a free-trade zone for clothing sweatshops.

In addition, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) has $258 million in commitments, including the Better Work Haiti and HOPE II projects, taking advantage of duty-free Haitian apparel exports to America to encourage greater sweatshop proliferation.

According to TransAfrica's founder Randall Robinson:

"That isn't the kind of investment that Haiti needs. It needs capital investment. It needs investment so that it can be self-sufficient. It needs investment so that it can feed itself." It also needs debt relief, not another $100 million the IMF just announced adding more to a $1.2 billion burden.

Above all, Haiti needs democratic governance freed from US control, military occupation, and the kind of oppression it's endured for centuries so its people can breathe free.

It doesn't need two past and a current US president allied with Haiti's elites, ignoring economic justice, exploiting Haitian labor, ignoring overwhelming human desperation, militarizing the country, crushing resistance if it arises, and implementing a disaster capitalism agenda at the expense of essential human needs, rights and freedoms.

The only good new is that the Obama administration granted undocumented Haitians Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months. They can now work legally and send remittances to family members. It affects 30,000 ordered deported and all non-US citizens.

During the Bush administration and throughout Obama's first year in office, repeated calls for it were refused. Now after 80 representatives and 18 senators, Republicans and Democrats, and the conference of Roman Catholic bishops sent appeals, Obama relented for Haitians in America as of January 12. New arrivals will be deported unlike Cubans under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act (as amended), a "wet foot/dry foot" policy under which those interdicted at sea are returned home, but others reaching shore are inspected for entry, then nearly always allowed to stay.

TPS aside, Haiti faces crushing burdens - deep poverty, vast unemployment, overwhelming human needs, severe repression, poor governance, Washington dominance, a burdensome debt, and much more before the January 12 quake. Now the disaster, militarization by the Pentagon, and disaster capitalism soon arriving besides what's already profiteering. It's been Haiti's plight for generations, the poorest hemispheric nation in the area most under Washington's iron grip and paying dearly for the privilege.

Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Sunday accused the United States of using the earthquake in Haiti as a pretext to occupy the devastated Caribbean country and offered to send fuel from his OPEC nation.

"I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that's what the United States should send," Chavez said on his weekly television show. "They are occupying Haiti undercover."

"On top of that, you don't see them in the streets. Are they picking up bodies? ... Are they looking for the injured? You don't see them. I haven't seen them. Where are they?"

Chavez promised to send as much gasoline as Haiti needs for electricity generation and transport.

A perennial foe of U.S. "imperialism," Chavez said he did not wish to diminish the humanitarian effort made by the United States and was only questioning the need for so many troops.

The United States is sending more than 5,000 Marines and soldiers to Haiti, and a hospital ship is due to arrive later this week.

The country's president said U.S. troops would help keep order on Haiti's increasingly lawless streets.

Venezuela has sent several planes to Haiti with doctors, aid and some soldiers. A Russia-Venezuela mission was set to leave Venezuela on Monday carrying aid on Russian planes.

Chavez said Venezuela's planes were the first to land in Haiti after Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake, which wrecked the capital Port-Au-Prince and killed as many as 200,000 people.

Of A Massacre

By Malcom Lagauche

January 11, 2010

In a few days, we will experience the 19th anniversary of the beginning of the first Gulf War. Unfortunately, many people have forgotten that era. Today, the news from Iraq mentions nothing about the first wave of destruction of the country.

When the first bomb fell on Iraq at 2:00 a.m. on January 17, 1991, the United States began the military implementation of years of deceit and dirty tricks to attain a permanent foothold in the Middle East. George Bush I enlisted, coerced and paid 27 other nations to help massacre Iraq, depriving these newly-won allies of any ethical high ground.

If you look at some of the countries involved in the anti-Iraq coalition, you will see that they varied greatly in their reasons for becoming involved in the slaughter. Few came on board because they considered it the right thing to do. As with the "alliance of the willing" that participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many of the "allies" of the 1991 campaign participated only to receive a payday from Washington.

Egypt, a long-time backer of Iraq, initially declined. After George Bush I told the Egyptians he would forgive a $7 billion debt, the once Iraq-friendly Egyptian government changed sides. Syria entered the alliance because of long-time animosities between its president, Haffas al-Assad, and the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein. Coincidentally, Syria was on America’s list of countries that support terrorism, but that did not affect Bush. Al-Assad’s payday came after the cease-fire was signed between Iraq and the U.S. The Bush administration turned a blind eye to Syria’s sending more than 30,000 military personnel to Lebanon, leaving Syria with a tremendous amount of influence in that country. Ironically, the Bush II administration called for the exit of Syrian troops from Lebanon and threatened Syria with military force if the troops remained.

Saudi Arabia, a country not exactly known for its progressive government, quickly sided with the U.S. when Bush falsely told them that Iraqi troops were stationed in Kuwait, just across the Saudi border, waiting to pounce on them. On September 11, 1990, Bush told a joint session of Congress:

We gather tonight witness to events in the Gulf as significant as they are tragic. One hundred and twenty thousand Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia.

The Defense Department outdid Bush with an estimate of 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks. Bush’s and the Pentagon’s ominous warnings were based on falsehoods.

Pictures taken by Soyuz-Karta, a Soviet commercial satellite agency, of Saudi Arabia on September 11, 1990, and of Kuwait on September 13, 1990 portrayed a different scenario. They showed no Iraqi presence near the Saudi border and only a small percentage of the U.S. administration’s estimate of the number of troops.

In December 1990, the St. Petersburg Times of Florida purchased these photos from the Soviet agency. They were analyzed by experts who concluded that the U.S. estimate was based on lies. According to Peter Zimmerman, who served with the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Reagan administration, "The Pentagon kept saying, the Iraqi troops were there, but we do not see anything to indicate an Iraqi force in Kuwait of even 20 percent the size the administration claimed."

Jean Heller wrote a report for the St. Petersburg Times in January 1991 about the quandary. However, the national media ignored the report and refused to publish it despite the newspaper’s editors approaching the Associated Press twice and the Scripps-Howard News Service. According to Heller:

The troops that were said to be massing on the Saudi border and that constituted the possible threat to Saudi Arabia that justified the U.S. sending of troops do not show up in these photographs. And when the Department of Defense was asked to provide evidence that would contradict our satellite evidence, it refused to do so.

I think part of the reason the story was ignored was that it was published too close to the start of the war. Secondly, and more importantly, I do not think people wanted to hear that we might have been deceived. A lot of the reporters who have seen the story think it is dynamite, but the editors who have seen it seem to have the attitude, "At this point, who cares? If the war ends badly with a lot of casualties, more than the administration had led us to expect, you might hear of this story again."

Coincidentally, the same photos that failed to show proof of an Iraqi buildup portrayed an American presence that was not supposed to be in Saudi Arabia at the time. According to Zimmerman:

We could see five C-141s, one C5A and four smaller transport aircraft, probably C-130s. There is also a long line of fighters, F-111s or F-15s, on the ground. In the middle of the airfield are what could be camouflaged staging areas.

Several countries did oppose the overwhelming force that was brought against Iraq, but they paid a price for such a lack of pro-U.S. sentiment. Aid was quickly cut to Jordan. Its leader, the late King Hussein, was under strong pressure from his country-people not to support the U.S. and he followed their lead, even though he was at one time, and again later became, a U.S. ally and informant in the region. When told about the cessation of aid, King Hussein stated, "We’re not that cheap." In the years after Desert Storm, King Hussein was brought back on board the U.S. ship of influence in the Middle East. Jordan became, and still is, the main area for U.S. intelligence and other operations in the Middle East. For a short time, however, King Hussein asserted his independence from the United States and stood up for the principles and ideals of his people.

Yemen was hard hit by the immediate severing of U.S. aid after it voted in the United Nations against the use of force against Iraq. Cuba, a long-time U.S. "enemy," was chastised after it voted the wrong way in the United Nations against "U.S. interests."

The U.S. version of democracy is selective — you are allowed to vote freely, as long as the vote is in favor of the U.S. A few years after the Gulf War, an incident occurred that depicted this U.S. murky view of democracy. The first democratic elections were held in the Serbian portion of Bosnia. When the results were announced, then U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright quickly negated the election. When she was asked by the press what made her decide to annul the results, she stated, "The wrong side won." In occupied Iraq, we see the same manipulation of democratic ideas occurring. In the first year of control, U.S. authorities shut down many newspapers and magazines for printing stories that were critical of the occupation. Democracy came to Iraq in a watered-down version.

The concept of the U.S. using the United Nations as a forum was a sham. Until November 1990, the U.S. considered the U.N. a useless organization that catered to Third World interests. The U.S. was quite vocal about its distaste for the U.N. and had refused to pay a substantial amount of money owed to the U.N. Then, in an about-face, shortly before a November 1990 vote on the Iraq issue, the U.S. forked over $187 million to the U.N. This "enlightened" action only constituted a small portion of what it owed to the world agency.

Much of the U.S. seemed to have gone mad during the five weeks of massacre in 1991. We watched as politician-after-politician talked favorably about what was happening. At times, it appeared that a vast portion of the U.S. political establishment was euphoric when describing the destruction. Unfortunately, we did not see the millions of people, both inside and outside the U.S., who were aghast at such actions. Government ministers from France, Italy and Turkey resigned in disgust, but the U.S. media did not deem their opposition newsworthy. There was a virtual news blackout of dissent. We were not being told what was happening, and what we were being told was mostly lies because the U.S. military controlled the media. Shortly after the cease-fire was signed, Norman Schwarzkopf publicly humiliated the U.S. media by explaining how they printed everything exactly the way the military described the conflict.

"No more Vietnams!" we heard as the slaughter was occurring. This definitely was not Vietnam. Iraq was a developing country that happened to be America’s chosen enemy in exorcising the ghost of Vietnam. After the cease-fire, even some ardent supporters of Desert Storm felt empty and confused. As one caller to National Public Radio stated on March 5, 1991, "The United States isn’t going to save its soul by a massacre in the desert."

Despite the seemingly simple victory over Iraq in 1991, the U.S. has seen the Vietnam analogy resurrected. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a strong resistance took hold and many now see "another Vietnam" taking place for the U.S. as the number of deaths of U.S. soldiers steadily increased.

The U.S. used all its experience in deception and its advanced weaponry that was built up over the decades in demolishing Iraq, despite international law stating the military force can only be used to reach a military objective. In this case, the military objective would have been to remove the Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The "allies" could have reached that goal with a fraction of the force used, but instead, the U.S. threw everything it had at Iraq.

After the slaughter, George Bush had the audacity to encourage the Iraqis to revolt and topple Saddam Hussein. He had no knowledge of Iraqi or Arab culture and he thought that a good beating by the United States would automatically turn the Iraqis against their president.

The only result of Bush’s call for an uprising was more bloodshed. Certain factions in Iraq (Kurds and Iranian-backed Shiite Muslims) were given false hope by the United States and they paid a heavy price for U.S. deception. Many Iraqis supported Saddam Hussein before the hostilities and their allegiances did not change after the cease-fire.

This era is now being recalled by the U.S. as one in which the Iraqi government massacred tens of thousands of innocent Shiite Muslims. However, the U.S. does not state that the Shiites, not the Iraqi army, began the uprising and the vicious fighting affected both sides. Many Iraqi army personnel and civilian workers were brutally killed by the Shiite insurgents. Photos came from Iraq showing Shiite executioners working overtime using scythe-like instruments to chop the heads off individuals as they were tied to tables. At one point, the insurgents of the north and south controlled 16 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The Bush administration considered it a matter of time until Baghdad fell.

Little-by-little, the Iraqi forces regained control of the country in brutal fighting. When the smoke cleared, the Shiites and the Kurds lost. The blame for all this chaos and bloodshed can be placed directly in the hands of the U.S. administration.

Coincidentally, the U.S. used the excuse of mass graves in southern Iraq as a reason for eventually toppling Saddam Hussein. For years, we heard of them, but after the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003, these mass graves came to the forefront. The news headlines read of the discovery of many mass graves. Eventually, the number of bodies found was put at 400,000. However, on July 18, 2004, British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted to the British public that this was an inflated figure. There were about 5,000 bodies, not 400,000 in these graves. And, almost 100% were of those of males of military age, meaning they were participants in the insurrection against Baghdad, not civilian casualties. Further forensic studies showed that many of the bodies were casualties of U.S. bombing in 1991. Also, a substantial number of the bodies found were in the north and were killed in the 1990s, during a civil war between Kurdish factions in Iraq.

The American lack of knowledge of the Arabic language played right into the hands of the administration. Pete Williams, the White House spokesman at the time, showed pictures of thousands of demonstrators in Baghdad as the insurrection reached its peak. He told of how rare demonstrations were in Iraq and mentioned that the Iraqi people were turning on their president. This could have been the official story if a few Arab-Americans did not step forward with the truth. Yes, there were demonstrations, but the protestors were displaying signs and posters demanding that the Iraqi government put a stop to the uprisings in the south and north of Iraq. Because few Americans can read Arabic, another convenient lie came into place in American folklore.

When photos of devastation in Iraq began to emerge, Bush tried to blame all of the destruction on Saddam Hussein, but the Iraqis did not buy the explanation. They knew all the devastation to the infrastructure of the country was caused by U.S. bombs, not Iraq’s retaliation against the Kurds and Shiites. Blatant attempts at deceiving the world were put forth by the U.S. For instance, the U.S. government showed photos of destroyed buildings and attributed the destruction to the Iraqi military. Under scrutiny, many of these depictions were proven to be false. A common ploy would be for a U.S. government spokesperson to show an area of Baghdad that was bombed by the U.S. and tell the world that it was an area of Basra that was destroyed by Saddam’s troops. This deception was quickly halted when enough people (photographers, journalists, etc.) came forward and pointed out the inaccuracies.

Desert Storm and its aftermath virtually eliminated a country on this Earth. Iraq was left without fresh water and electricity. The first United Nations inspection team to visit Iraq after Desert Storm said the country had reverted to a "pre-industrial society."

“The country that exerts the greatest influence on the Gulf and its oil, will consolidate its superiority as an unrivaled superpower.
This proves that if the population of the Gulf – and of the entire Arab world – is not vigilant, this area will be ruled according to the wishes of the United States.”

Saddam Hussein, February 1990.